


the veil

by miss_belivet



Series: the wonder poison archive [10]
Category: Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Afterlife, F/F, Fluff, Light Angst, Reunions, WonderPoison - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 16:32:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14675034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_belivet/pseuds/miss_belivet
Summary: Eternity is not so long after all.





	the veil

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BlueJay_Silvertongue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueJay_Silvertongue/gifts).



> I suggest reading the short oneshots _johanna_ and _nearby_ in this series to get an understanding of where this comes from.

Eternity is not so long after all, once the innumerable years begin to pass like seconds.

And Isabel is dying, her chemically-altered and magically-sustained human body finally taken to the brink of existence that Diana’s will not reach until the very universe ceases to exist.

Diana holds her hand and smiles sadly, but millennia upon millenia of _I love you’s_ and parting kisses have ground the meaning of such gestures down to nothing. No, Diana looks her in the eye and smiles her small, sad, understanding smile. Hours later, when Isabel’s lungs become heavy in her chest with thousands of years of smog, when her heart starts to sputter and burn out, Diana leans into her, presses their cheeks together, and sighs her name.

_Isabel._

Nothing else needs to be said.

She is Isabel. Diana is Diana. Their names belong on each other’s lips more than any sweet sentiment in any language.

The dark curtain of Diana’s hair obscures Isabel’s vision, hiding the metal-and-stone bunker the scorching climate forces them to live in from view, and Isabel’s cheek twitches in an aborted smile when the smooth end of a curl slips past her parted lips.

She closes her eyes and breathes.

_Diana._

She hasn’t attended mass since she was a child on her mother’s arm, hasn’t believed in Christ for longer, and she has met more gods than she can count on both of her hands in the years since she has met Diana… But when she closes her eyes, knowing full well that she will never open them again, she worries that it might have all been a terrible tease of a dream, and she will wake up burning in the fires of hell.

 

* * *

 

“...Isabel?”

Isabel thinks she might recognize the voice, but she has heard so many. Voices and faces all blur together after a few centuries, and only immediate acquaintances are remembered until they die; Isabel cannot name the people in old, unlabelled photographs, and she cannot even remember her own face, somedays, scarred as it was for nearly a century.

But there is something to this voice, a hinting cadence of fondness, that tells Isabel all she needs to know.

“Isabel, _meine Liebe,_ open your eyes.”

_Oh, Johanna._

She knows Johanna. Knows the laminated, digitized, preserved, black-and-white face in one photograph, though she cannot remember any other expressions or the fall of her hair or the twinkle in her eyes. She’s seen Johanna over the centuries, at a distance, through the Veil. Diana met her once, only in passing, when she rescued some poor innocent from Tartarus, and afterward she brought a kiss back from the Asphodel Meadows for Isabel with a mischievous glint in her eye.

Not hell, then. If Isabel were in hell, Johanna would be crying.

Or worse—screaming.

Fingertips graze Isabel’s cheek, and then a lukewarm palm cups her jaw. Johanna thumbs the corner of her lip, and Isabel can feel her tracing the twisted scar hidden beneath her unmarred, regenerated skin.

“Isabel,” Johanna says again. She huffs—a _playful_ sound, Isabel realizes with some shock—and nudges her face until Isabel is the one huffing, stubbornly keeping her eyes closed. _“Liebling_ , open your eyes and look at me. You are dead, not unresponsive.”

Isabel snickers at that.

 _Dead, not unresponsive;_ it is exactly the kind of stupid oxymoron that delighted Johanna when she was alive.

So Isabel snickers, and then she laughs, and soon she is choking on her breath ( _Is it breath if I am dead?_ ) on the cold ground. Johanna laughs, too, honking the same ungraceful goose-honk that Isabel managed to remember for nearly eight-thousand years.

It is such an ugly sound, so at odds with the otherwise beautiful woman, that Isabel feels enamored again already.

She finally opens her eyes after they both calm down, and Johanna is hovering over her, one eyebrow raised and a smirk on her lips in blatant mimicry of Isabel’s favorite expression. Isabel smiles back, awed, but when the split-ends of a long, blonde lock of Johanna’s hair fall into her mouth, Isabel feels her joy dim as she remembers the name so central to her being that it may as well be her own.

 _The things I could tell you,_ she thinks, looking at Johanna. Of princesses and warriors and monsters and gods. Mistakes and hatred and healing.

Johanna seems to understand, because her teasing smile softens, and she runs her fingers through Isabel’s peppery hair. “I saw it all,” she says, to Isabel’s mixed horror and relief. "I quite like her after all she's done for you."

“You don’t… _mind?”_

Johanna shakes her head, and the hair tickles Isabel’s lips.

“We can stay here and wait for her.”

 

* * *

 

They see Diana again over the centuries, at a distance, through the Veil. They meet several times, though only in passing, when she puts a stop to the old gods’ plots, and Isabel and Johanna send her back each time with two kisses to last her until they meet again.

**Author's Note:**

> Anyway, happy birthday to @BlueJay_Silvertongue! Am I going to have to bring out the smut, or will this official sequel to _Johanna_ work as a gift?
> 
> (Also, I've been shipping Diana/Isabel/Johanna for nearly a year now, and I don't think anyone has known. Surprise! I ship them all together.)


End file.
